A Series of Simple Plans
by gibbousmoons
Summary: All Shirou wanted was someone to help him figure out how to be an ally of justice. It's not like he could rely on his father's definition- HE failed, so his methods must have been flawed. Things. . . might end up being misunderstood. Maybe. Possibly. Oh Grail, this is Shirou we're talking about here. He hasn't got a prayer.
1. Chapter 1

Wherein Shirou decides to get someone's help on that whole 'Ally of Justice' thing.

XIXI  
XIXI

Emiya Shirou was a hero.

There are a few things ever hero needs. A legacy, power, a look, an accompl- sideki- confidant, and heroic deeds. Emiya Shirou, hero in (self)training and ally of justice, felt that he had most of those covered pretty well.

His father was a failed hero, who gave up his ideals, but tried to do right in the end. Legacy? Check. He was a magus, so Shirou was sure he'd get the power part down eventually. He may not be all that great now, but he was improving, even if only slowly. Power? Halfway checked. He also had striking gold eyes, and Taiga kept telling him… Well, he gave looks a half check as well. A confidant? Not since his father passed away. He was very helpful, in lack of actual heroic deeds to perform, though he was sure Sakura thought he was a hero.

Why else would she want to hang around with him so much?

Emiya Shirou was a hero, but only if you rounded up from halfway. He needed a confidant, someone to help him when he needed it. He was sure he was doing _something _wrong with this whole hero business, and wanted someone to check his work. There was a problem, though.

Emiya Shirou was a magus, and he planned on using his magecraft to help people, like his father had. If he let someone who wasn't a magus know about magecraft, then he'd be hunted down and killed by the association, and his confidant would have an 'unfortunate accident'. Emiya Kiritsugu had made sure his adopted son knew what the Clock Tower was capable of before he died.

He couldn't ask for help from the creepy priest he'd seen eating spicy curry at the Chinese place. His father had warned him about the Church, too, and Kirei in particular. Besides, the Church and magi didn't get along, and didn't get along rather famously, according to the few tomes Kiritsugu had left his son.

One day, while debating his options, Shirou had drawn up a list of people he could have be his confidant. He'd promptly crossed out everyone much older than university age. His father had given up after trying to be a hero, and Shirou didn't want to work with someone who didn't think he could do it. That meant he had to find a magus his age, and carefully reveal himself to him, once he was sure he could trust him.

One thing was sure, Shirou thought as he pulled out a stack of books from beneath his father's bed. He'd have to be very careful not to expose himself to the wrong person, or he'd be killed before he could protect much of anybody. Now where was the book about finding magi?

XIXI

Shirou adjusted his backpack, then set it on the floor and began to rummage through it as the last bell rang and students began to flow out the main door of Homurahara Gakuen. The light bulb he'd covered in careful runes and markings, in perfect accordance with his father's notes, was dark.

He'd found the rune pattern written in the margin of a beginner's guide to bounded fields, right where he'd remembered it being. The runes were incredibly sensitive, and Shirou hadn't practiced his magecraft in a week so that he wouldn't have enough trace Prana clinging to him to activate them. The notes said the array generated an electrical current, and could be used to activate a magus-specific trap.

Shirou was using it to power a light bulb. If the bulb lit up, there was a practicing magus within a few meters.

This was the third day he'd been outside this door, having made an excuse to his teacher about Ms. Fujimura wanting him to help her set up the archery dojo. So far, he'd gotten one result- Issei, his best friend. He'd made the bulb light up a tiny amount, and Shirou still wasn't sure if he hadn't just fooled himself.

The fledgling hero started to close his bag. There was no one else in the hallway any more. He may as well get home and start making- What was that?!

Shirou looked closer into the depths of his bag. He thought he'd seen a flash of light…

A hesitant voice interrupted his thoughts. "Sempai?" It was Sakura, his other best friend. That she'd seen him staring into his backpack for minutes on end was unspoken, but obvious to both of them. She'd never bring it up, though.

"Ah, Sakura!" Shirou closed his backpack and slung it back on his shoulder. "I was just making sure I had everything, and I got lost in thought. Did you have a pleasant day?"

It was only after dinner was over, and Taiga had left, that Shirou took his Prana detector out of his bag and realized something. The bulb _had_ to havelit up earlier, because now the filament was burned to a crisp. Then there was only one thought in his head, and Shirou was nearly ecstatic.

Sakura! All that worry about finding a magus he could trust, and it turned out _Sakura _was one the whole time! All he had to do was….

Huh. He hadn't gotten that far in his plan yet.

XIXI

"Sakura, could you give me a hand in the shed? I've got some things I need to bring inside." It was early in the morning, and Shirou had managed to wake up before Sakura started breakfast for the Emiya house's morning group. Normally that meant her sempai would cook, something Sakura secretly enjoyed, but it seemed Shirou had something else in mind today.

Her body pulsed with her parasitic crest as she followed Shirou out the door and to the shed in the back, his secret place.

His workshop. The most personal place a magus had, and where no one but those a magus trusted with their life were welcome, no- even more personal than that. Sakura's cheeks reddened as she searched for the best example. A house? A secret room? A- A bedroom?

She was pulled from her speculation by the object of her attentions. "I've kind of got a project going on, and I'd like you to double check something for me. It's not something I've worked with much, and I'm not sure I understand exactly what I'm doing…"

Sakura's mind raced, though she took care not to get lost in her thoughts again. He couldn't mean his magecraft, could he? Forget his bedroom, that would be like inviting her into- Stop that. She slowed her breathing, glad Shirou wasn't looking at her, his attention taken up by unsticking a large padlock on the shed's door. The latch it was hooked into wasn't actually attached to the doorframe. Perhaps it was the disarming point for some kind of subtle bounded field?

Besides, it's not like Shirou even knew she was a magus. She'd taken care never to actually practice magecraft outside- Stop. There was no need for that kind of thinking. She didn't need to get distracted with things like that now, not when her sempai needed help with some non-magecraft related thing that she could distract herself with. She was soiled, dirty, and she shouldn't think of tainting him like that.

Shirou was pulling a box off a high shelf, and his shirt was just a little too small… Sakura's eyes flicked down to the widening gap between his pants and shirt. Just a little- No more. She closed her eyes and forcibly quieted her body.

"See, Sakura? I'm not very experienced with this, and the manuals my father left for dealing with this kind of thing aren't very helpful." He was standing in front of her in the shed, they were both in the shed (she must have gotten distracted again). He'd taken something out of the box and set it on a table mounted into the wall. She stepped in for a closer look, holding her breath. The last thing Sakura wanted to deal with was breathing his warm scent while she felt his body just inches aw- She inspected the light bulb on the table.

It was small, smaller than her closed fist, and spherical with a metal base, where it would screw into a socket. Sakura knew it ran off of electricity, and how that power was conveyed. She'd even had a few ideas on how to apply the Matou magecraft style's ability to 'take and control' for a combat spell, though it would take months and months of dedicated research to create it, time she didn't have with schoolwork, Shirou, archery club, Shirou, and the pit. She could feel herself getting warmer, and surely Shirou could hear her breathing from the scant feet that now separated them, but that didn't matter.

That didn't matter at all, because the half the bulb was covered in runes. He really was asking for her help on magecraft. He knew she was a magus. "Shirou… this is your magecraft." Sakura slowly turned to face him at his relieved sigh, face blank despite the twisting and writhing inside her.

"I made a Prana detector and it flashed when you got close." He was trying to explain himself. "I thought about making another one, but I couldn't wait, I had to know if you were a magus too. Ever since my father died I've just been so unsure. I didn't know if I was doing anything right or wrong or-"

She'd put her finger on his lips. Her tainted finger was touching his mouth. "I… I didn't see anything wrong the runes." She forced out. She was just checking his work, after all. It wasn't like he'd asked to combine their styles of magecraft or anything like that. It was just like how he'd helped her with archery, only now she got to help Shirou. "It takes waste Prana from nearby thaumaturgy and converts it to electricity, right?"

"Yes! Yes." He smiled widely. God, that smile made her heart pound so hard in her chest, harder than it had ever beat before, even in the pit. "I was tired of working with candlelight in here. I can't just run a line, because that would be a weak point in the bounded field's perimeter, and Prana would leak out. That would ruin the whole point of having a secret workshop!" He was obviously proud of how he'd hidden his magecraft, and Sakura was impressed as well. No destructive traps and warnings, like grandfather's, nothing to even hint that Shirou was a magus at all.

"So I was hoping that you could help me out with some of this."

Did he just? No, she must have been fooling herself, lost in a fantasy again. "What?"

"It's all right if you aren't allowed to, I mean, I'm not trying to make you give me your secrets or anything like that. I don't want to steal your magecraft, I can trade! I've got a few things in here that you might want to learn too, so we can combine our styles, I guess. I mean, I don't exactly have a teacher any more and…"

Her sempai, her Shirou, was still talking, rummaging around in the box and pulling out a few more items she recognized as extremely primitive mystic codes and putting them on the table, but Sakura wasn't listening. She was going over what he'd just said, the words echoing through her mind and smashing through doors she'd long left closed as tightly as she could manage.

He said he wanted to learn from her, and he was willing to teach her things too. He would help her with things, and she would help him with things. It was like a partnership.

Who was she trying to fool? He'd just offered to combine their magecrafts into one style. There was a word for that. Sakura licked her lips. She was dirty, filthy, unclean, not worthy of someone as pure as Shirou. But if he wanted her, well...

Who was she to say no?

XIXI  
XIXI

AN: Magecraft is passed down through families. Anyone else though of what offering to 'share' the secrets of their family style with someone of the opposite gender might be interpreted as?

Yes, this has devolved into an excuse for a Shirou/Sakura pairing. Of course, this being Shirou, he might completely misinterpret the situation. Again.

"Taiga! Sakura's sick! She just got so hot she started sweating like crazy, and she's breathing heavy, and she even started taking her clothes off!"


	2. Chapter 2

I do not own the Nasuverse, including, but not limited to, Fate Stay Night, Fate Zero, and Fate Tiger Coliseum. If you think I'm Nasu, who owns this here property, you be trippin. If you think I'm making a profit off of this, you also be trippin. If you think Type-Mood owns the characters and places depicted herein, you be cool. But if be you some kinda fool that thinks I'm using somebody else's _plot_, then you be crazy, fool!

The jokes may be stale, in some isolated instances, though. And for that, I apologize.

Introducing _A Series of Simple Plans_, chapter two.

XIXI  
XIXI

"So, what you're saying is that you've known I was a magic user since you first came to my house with Taiga, a few months ago?"

"Yes." Sakura nodded her head and then goes back to watching the food she was cooking. Taiga would be over soon, and she didn't want to disappoint her elder-sister figure. "Because of my family's magecraft specialty I'm sensitive to . . . foreign Prana traces, and your house is," She stops and licks her lips as she loses herself in the memory of entering the Emiya mansion for the first time, the way the raw scent of expended Prana clung to every blade of grass and meter of wall.

"It felt like the Matou mansion, that first day." She explained, still not looking at her- her _partner_. "When I first came with Taiga Fujinee to make breakfast for you, there was Prana everywhere. It . . . tingled."

"Huh. I thought the bounded field took care of that." Shirou mused, and stepped up behind Sakura to help with the big pot. Her cheeks were flush with blood, and her hands were shaking. He couldn't just let her risk dropping something, so he gently took the utensils out of her hands, ushering her back out. "I can take care of this; just sit down for a while, all right Sakura?"

"All right." Her breaths were heavy and her pulse was racing, but Sakura took advantage of Shirou turning his back on her to calm herself again. She needed to distract herself. "It's a basic containment type, right? The bounded field? It just stops Prana from leaving it?"

"Yes, but my father built it, so it's hard to detect. It runs of the Prana in the air that touches it, so the more it has to contain, the longer it runs for." He shrugged. "I'm trying to recreate his research, but I'm not having much luck so far, so I don't think I could do something that large yet."

"Oh, what did your father specialize in?" That was a safe topic, relatively speaking. The worms wouldn't bother her while she was thinking about dead people, one of Grandfather's ideas. Shirou's father had died a few years ago, when he was twelve, of a wasting sickness.

"Bounded fields, mostly, and something called Innate Time Manipulation. He wasn't an exceptional magus, but he was better than half of them, and that's something!" Shirou cheered. "He was good at hiding things, and he mostly used his magecraft to- er- help with his job."

Sakura smiled at her sempai's cheerfulness. He always looked on the bright side. "Is that why you're having trouble with his magecraft, he's hidden his crest as a test for you?" She almost flushed at the thought of spending more time alone with Shirou in his house. Wandering through the closed rooms, holding hands as they explored the attic, or the basement, or the bedrooms . . .

"Eh, no." Shirou admitted. "The illness that took my father decayed his magic circuits. By the time he died, his magic crest was a mess of half-decayed circuits, he took it to the grave with him."

And just like that Sakura decided not to come within half a kilometer of the graveyard Shirou's father was buried in. Ever.

A thought occurred to her. "Does that mean you're recreating your family's magecraft _without a crest?_" She gasped. "That's amazing! And you've already started improving your father's workshop, with those light bulbs!"

"Again, no. Sorry, Sakura." Shirou turned off the stove and smiled at her, obviously not paying attention to what he was saying as he focused on the food. "I'm pretty sure father's workshop was in a warehouse in Europe, since he moved around a lot and most of his jobs where around other old families. "He did lay the bounded field around the house, though. I mentioned that, didn't I?"

Sakura whispered. "Yes. You did. Does that mean you put up the field around your workshop by yourself?"

"I sure did!"

Shirou's pride was infectious, and Sakura beamed at him behind his back. Mmmm. . . Shirou-sempai's back. . . His lean, hard, muscled- stop that. Sakura jerked her body back into control before the worms started moving again. Deep breaths cooled her down. Breathing through her mouth stopped her crest-enhanced sense of smell from influencing her. Closing her eyes for a moment allowed her to stop staring. "Wow, that's amazing sempai!"

"Hey, don't call me sempai when we're talking about magic!" Shirou said. "I'm pretty sure you've been doing magecraft longer than I have. I mean, I only figured out how to activate my magic circuits a few months ago."

Sakura took a step back as her breath hitched again. "That's incredible! You learned how to put up bounded fields, and use runes, in _two months_?"

Shirou mock flinched at what he took as an accusation. "It's not that bad. I mean, I had to learn from notes because I didn't have a real teacher, though," he admits, "I'll confess that I just copied the rune diagrams from my father's notes, but I did manage to change the voltage output so it would work with the lightbulb."

Sakura didn't argue with him.

If he wanted to downplay how he'd created an _entirely new_ function of magecraft in less than three months, while also going to school and helping everyone who asked, she wasn't going to argue.

Sempai wanted her help, not her backtalk.

Sakura licked her lips as she contemplated giving Shirou everything she could offer him.

. . . And then she fainted.

"Sakura, can you give me a hand here? Sakura? Sakura!"

But the violet-haired girl was out like a light, and no matter how much Shirou shook her, she didn't wake up.

"Good morning Shirou! Where's my delightful morning treat, and my food!" Which is exactly what Fujimura Taiga saw when she flung the door open, Shirou bent over Sakura's prone form on the kitchen floor. "Atta boy, Shirou!" She shouted, then positively _roared_, "BUT WHERE'S MY BREAKFAST!"


	3. Chapter 3

I'd just like to mention that in the visual novel, Shirou was perfectly willing to beat Shinji within an inch of his life when he realized he was still abusing Sakura. Shirou is nice, but he's also a hero. As this is FSN, I think everyone who's familiar with the source material can realize that heroes aren't always nice.

XIXI  
XIXI

The duo of students walked to school, Shirou behind his junior, for once. "So, if you've been here your whole life," he says, "you must be the second owner. You couldn't be uneducated like me, so your family must be magi!" The second owner was a title Shirou had been told about by his father, a long-standing family was entrusted by the Magus Association with ensuring that magecraft was not revealed within the area around their home. "I bet your whole family must be magi!"

It was a logical conclusion, which is why he was so surprised when Sakura didn't reply, instead hunching over and flinching. "N- no. I'm the only one." She whispered.

Shirou couldn't believe it. "But what about your brother? I mean-" He grasped for a reason to explain himself, "you and he both have such. . . Unique hair. I thought that maybe. . . Magic. . . " His voice dropped off into nothingness when Sakura's face was rendered in darkness and malice by a stretch of shadows in the morning sun. For a moment, he thought Sakura's eyes flashed crimson, but the moment passed, and Sakura straightened again.

"His hair is natural." She said, in the same tone she often used to kick Shirou out of the kitchen. Unlike their frequent morning disagreements, however, that was the end of the discussion on the topic.

As the streets passed behind them Sakura turned to face Shirou, stopping before the crosswalk. She held her arms back and grabbed one elbow with her other hand. "Sempai, I think it would be best if- I don't think you should- Please don't mention magecraft to Shinji, he doesn't like to have the subject brought up."

She stepped closer to Shirou, and he was reminded that Sakura was, in fact, in high school, and wasn't as young as she was even a year ago. Also that her shirt was too tight. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't. Bring it up, I mean." She said.

There was only one thing he could say to a face like that. "If you're sure, then you know him best." Shirou smiled at the purple haired girl, and she back. "But there's something you should know."

"What?" Sakura's breath quickened, and Shirou resolutely kept his eyes in hers.

"Your shirt's too snug for archery club, and it'll interfere with your pull. I know you live alone with Shinji, but you should be able to get new shirts. If can't, well, just let me know, and I'll arrange something with Taiga. All right?"

"All right." Sakura flushed, spun on her heels, and quickly left in the direction of the archery dojo.

"I guess she must be late. Huh."

But Shirou had one more thought as his partner walked away, the flinch Sakura made when he mentioned her brother having come to the forefront of his thoughts.

"I guess somebody hasn't gotten beaten enough lately. If I were a worm, where would I be?"

XIXI

The sounds of adolescent fangirls surrounded Shirou as he swept through the early-morning crowd like a janitor through a cluster of schoolchildren. Kendo club members stepped out of his way, military otaku stopped debating the merits of various jet fighters as he passed, and jocks and academic snobs of all types and shapes fell silent as soon as he came into view.

This was because Emiya Shirou was not feeling helpful, and it showed.

Something must be wrong! Horoscopes were checked, the stars read (via cell-phone internet), and books were studied, and eventually a consensus was reached. Someone must have finally managed to piss Shirou off, and they were about to get their face beaten in.

The questions on everyone's mind were simple.

Just who was so aggravatingly stupid that they couldn't stay on Shirou's good side? It was almost canonical fact that he didn't have a bad side to be on, so what kind of colossal idiot had made him find it?

The answer that leapt to mind was even more simple, and many students nodded to themselves.

Shinji.

XIXI

Matou Shinji was a freshman at Homurahara School, and he knew that he was on top of the world. Not even his failure at magecraft could override the sheer power he had over the girls that flocked to him, the power that they gave him. Some days, he even thought it was worth it. Better to be devilishly handsome than ugly, and who knows if his magic circuits would have ruined his looks?

But almost every other day he knew what a worthless waste of flesh he was, and it was all because he wasn't a magus.

It was a good thing he could take out his frustrations and inadequacy on his adopted sister Sakura! They weren't even related, really, so he didn't even have to feel conflicted about it!

The blue-haired pretty boy was shocked out of his poorly thought out internal ramblings when his good ol' pal Shirou punched him in the gut, driving the air from his body and all thoughts from his head.

Matou Shinji folded like a single pair, seven high.

"Hey Shinji." Hard gold eyes peered into Shinji's watery ones. "I think we're going to have a talk in my dojo after school. If you don't show up, I'm telling Taiga what you've done."

And with that, Shirou was gone, leaving Shinji wondering just what Shirou had found out about.

Needless to say, his day did not end on a good note.

It ended with bruises, pain, a sprained wrist, pain, and a new commitment to never lay a finger on his sister again, on pain of pain, and Shirou telling Fujimura-sensai.

XIXI

XIXI

AN: Meh. Not really happy with how this turned out. Too much show, and not enough tell, methinks.


End file.
